


clair de lune

by 4okra



Category: Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon, Nancy Drew (Video Games), Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: Awkward Dates, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, chocolate cake, everyone is bi, nancy is done with everyone's shit, ned is a baby, they aren't really enemies but that's the best way to describe it, third wheeling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 21:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11883444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4okra/pseuds/4okra
Summary: When Ned hears the Hardy's are in town, he's excited about the idea of getting to see Joe again. When Nancy calls him for one of their bi-weekly phone calls and mentions that Frank is going to take her to dinner, however, he’s not quite as excited as he was before.Or, Ned convinces himself Frank will be a bad influence on Nancy if they date, so he third wheels like a pro and accidentally develops feelings for Frank along the way.





	clair de lune

**Author's Note:**

> you know how a lot of fanfic authors write something like “this started as a joke and turned into a 20k word monster” in the notes? yeah this is one of those times. also [froy gutierrez](https://www.google.com/search?q=Froy+Gutierrez&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqpM_kouzVAhUJqlQKHQQnDj4Q_AUICigB&biw=1280&bih=693#imgrc=qFdwr4Z6-6qkKM:) is like the perfect ned.

When Ned hears that the Hardy’s are in town for an indefinite amount of time, he feels pleasantly surprised. He and Joe get along really well, especially after Joe finally finished fixing his car while Nancy was in Italy. They text each other fairly often, especially when Joe is on a particularly boring case, or any other similarly boring circumstances. The one other time the Hardy’s visited town, Joe set up a pillow fort in Ned’s old dorm room and they marathoned the High School Musical series in one night, which was truly an emotional rollercoaster like none other Ned had experienced before.

So when Joe texts him, “ _GUESS WHO’S BACK IN TOWN????_ ” accompanied by a selfie of Joe and Frank with stickers of sunglasses and hearts plastered onto it and the words “THE BOIZ” scribbled beneath their faces, he’s pretty excited by the prospect of being able to see the younger of the brothers again.

When Nancy calls him for one of their bi-weekly phone calls and mentions that Frank is going to take her to dinner, however, he’s not quite as excited as he was before. Especially after she mentions the name of the restaurant. A quick Google search tells him that it’s one of the fanciest, most hoity-toity restaurants in the area. She says it’s just a friend dinner thing, just to catch up with each other, but Ned’s not a moron.

He and Nancy have been on a “break” for a few months now, and if _Friends_ is at all applicable to real life, Ned knows that means it’s over. Except, contrary to what one might believe, he’s securely okay with that. He and Nancy had a really nice relationship, but as time went on they realized they weren’t in the same place emotionally, or quite literally physically, what with her being gone so much. And it’s not like they would have really been able to go on dates to keep things alive leading up to their break up, because in addition to Nancy’s travelling, Ned has been finishing up his degree. That meant pretty much zero free time, even just for a nice night out. So he’s fine with it. Really. He’s just not quite as fine with Mr. Mysterious Handsome Brave Strong Hardy stepping in and leading Nancy off into even more dangerous mysteries than she’s already involved in, that’s all.

Which is why he finds himself texting Joe at 10:07PM the same day he receives that ridiculous selfie, asking if he happens to know which day and when exactly Frank made the reservation for dinner. The reply with that exact information comes just a few minutes later, followed by the question “why?????” and then five texts in a row, one right after the other, all theorizing reasons Ned might need this information.

After a few minutes, Ned still can’t think of a very good reason why. He asks Burt, who he shares his apartment with and is currently sitting on the opposite end of the couch, if he knows how to make his reasoning not sound crazy. He’s not very helpful though, so Ned just replies “the ned nickerson hotline is currently busy try again later”. Joe replies with “lmao ok hotshot lets hang out in a few days!!!! tell me when ur free next week”. After that the conversation moves on to more benign topics, like the ridiculous names of the women on Say Yes to The Dress UK (like “Precious Jewel Earth Zibinsky”) and how incredibly awful the new Sonic video games are.

\---

As he walks up to the restaurant a couple days later, Ned immediately spots two figures that hold themselves with such easy confidence that there’s no question who they are. Also Nancy’s hair is sort of an unmistakable, blinding shade of red. Especially when the sunset backlights it like it does now.

Ned adjusts his collar, makes sure his sleeves are rolled up just enough to be _casual_ and not _forced_. It’s a delicate line and he’s doing his best to walk it with some sort of practiced ease, but he’s not sure this is a skill he has practiced enough to do that. But it’s fine. He’s got his lucky light blue dress shirt on, the one he wore when he aced his Multivariable Calculus final. He saves it for only the special-est of occasions, or occasions in which he needs to look hot, because seriously. Baby blue is his color.

He finds himself slowing down the closer he gets to the door, squinting his eyes to see more clearly. Ned is thoroughly startled by how well Frank cleans up. When he’s not in the middle of a case, he seems to instantly develop a sense of fashion. The old flannel and puffy vest that honestly just reminds Ned of camping gear are replaced by a crisp white button up and a dark navy blazer that hugs his shoulders just right. For a second, Ned forgets he’s supposed to hate Frank, almost understands why Nancy likes him so much. Then he sees Nancy, who for once in her life is not wearing mom jeans and is instead clad in a pair of black trousers and her own white button up shirt.

“You match,” Ned observes aloud, trying not to snort. When Nancy turns towards him, her eyes widen, taken aback, then they relax in recognition.

“Ned!” she says, smiling. Then her eyebrows draw together in confusion, but the smile doesn’t fade. “What’re you doing here?”

“Yeah,” Frank adds uneasily, “what _are_ you doing here, Nickerson?”

“Well I haven’t been doing much recently, so I thought I’d go out tonight. Burt recommended this place to me,” he lies. Usually he’s about as good of a liar as Bess, but this is _important_ , and he can’t let Nancy know that he’s low-key stalking her dates via her date’s younger brother. Or let Frank know that, for that matter; they’re both detectives, after all, and Ned hadn’t really thought about how much pressure he’s putting himself under until just now. Great. “How crazy is this, though?” he soldiers on. “I had no idea you guys would be here tonight.”

Frank gives him a look that makes him feel a little bit like he’s a suspect in a serious crime. It makes Ned’s skin crawl.

“Well,” Nancy says, pulling Frank and Ned’s attention away from each other and onto her. “We were just gonna grab some dinner, do you want to join?”

Bingo.

“I couldn’t possibly encroach on your evening,” Ned protests good-naturedly, because he knows Nancy well enough to know she’ll insist.

Frank opens his mouth to say something – probably to agree with Ned, but Nancy doesn’t notice and continues on.

“No, no, come on, it’ll be fun. I’m sure the restaurant won’t mind you joining us.”

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind,” Ned says through what he hopes comes across as an appreciative smile. He glances at Frank, who is shooting him a look that says, _I do mind, I mind a lot, thank you very much._

It is at this point that the hostess comes outside to tell them that their table is ready, and Frank, despite how much he seems to be against it, politely informs her of the extra person being added to their table. There are no tables for four available for them to switch to, so Ned scoots in on the side of their two-person sized table, with Frank to his left and Nancy to his right. Ned puts on his best smile when he notices the slightly annoyed look on Nancy’s face as she’s forced to move her silverware closer towards herself, not nearly as much elbow room as there was before.

“You never told me why you match,” Ned points out.

Nancy grins a little, just a small flash of teeth, and Frank looks flustered for a second, cheeks flushing just barely. Something in Ned’s stomach churns and he forces himself to look away.

“Well, I thought I’d go shopping today, since it’s been a while since I bought anything nice for myself to wear. So I called Bess, but she has a cold, so George offered to go with me instead, and, well…” She glances down at herself, laughing a little. “I mean, is anyone really surprised?” she asks not unkindly, a warm sort of fondness in her voice.

A waitress comes by their table just as Nancy finishes speaking, tells them the specials and asks for drink orders to start off. Frank orders some kind of fancy imported beer, so Ned asks for the same thing in attempts to appear _sophisticated._ Frank shoots him a look that’s definitely annoyed, but there’s something else to it too, almost like he’s puzzled. It’s all a moot point though, because Nancy just looks unimpressed and orders bottled water.

After the waitress leaves, Frank starts telling Nancy a story about one of his cases, one that was so hush-hush Nancy never heard about it, apparently. Nancy looks enthralled, which is frustrating, but she seems much more interested in the types of clues he and Joe found and how they tied into the mystery as opposed to the romantic scenery Frank is trying to paint with words.

Ned stops paying very much attention to the conversation after their waitress brings their drinks, trying instead to think of anything remotely exciting that has happened to him recently. He’s not sure he can come up with anything that might top an undercover case concerning some wealthy family in Austria. He hasn’t travelled in two years, unless you count his routine trips back to Mapleton to visit his parents and their new dog, Foofy.

Well, there’s something new. His parents got a new dog. That doesn’t give off a very impressive vibe, though, does it? That his parents are his biggest source of news? He tries to think of any other new developments. Burt accidentally hit on an older woman the other day at the grocery, which was hilarious to observe from one aisle over, but incredibly less hilarious when Burt scrambled over and grabbed his arm with both hands, frantically explaining that Ned had to be his fake boyfriend for approximately five minutes to get the woman off his back. He decides not to tell that story.

Ned sighs, takes a sip of his beer. Frank is doing a fairly impressive job of ignoring Ned’s presence altogether, which would be fine if that did not mean that by extension Nancy is ignoring him too. Although, maybe he’s going at this all wrong. Maybe it would be better if he tried to monopolize Frank’s attention… As long as Nancy and Frank aren’t bonding, right?

“So,” Ned says once the story is over. “Have you guys decided what to eat? It all looks so good, I’m having trouble deciding.” That’s a lie, he hasn’t even looked at the menu yet. He just pretended to look at it while they were talking and he was thinking about his tremendously boring life. It’s not his fault, though. He’s been trying to graduate with a degree in chemical engineering, which, in case anyone forgot, takes a lot of free time away. And by “a lot”, he really means _all._

“Hm, not really,” says Nancy as she glances over her own menu.

“I read on Yelp that the lobster is incredible,” Frank mentions, not looking up from his own menu.

“Yelp, huh?” Ned asks with a little bit of a laugh in his voice. Frank meets his eyes with a questioning gaze. “Are you one of those people who writes novel-length reviews?”

To his surprise, Frank smirks. “No, actually. But I do try to leave positive comments if a restaurant or café is really good, or has good service. Joe and I travel so much we get to try out a lot of new places, and if I can help the really good ones out, even a little, I think it’s worth it.”

Ned is a little awed by how genuine he sounds. He’s never really spent much time with Frank, never took any amount of time to think about how he might actually be kind and considerate of others. Apparently the revelation shows on his face, because Frank laughs (a barely quickened exhale through the nose, really) before turning back to his menu.

Frank ends up being the only one to get the lobster. Nancy orders scallops, and Ned goes for the mushroom risotto. He can’t actually remember what risotto is, but he figures it’ll be good. And it’s not the lobster, so there.

“So Frank,” Ned starts, “are you in school?”

“I am,” Frank answers.

“Business major, right?” Nancy asks. She’s smiling in a way that reminds Ned of the sun.

“Yeah,” Frank confirms, looking a little too enthusiastic that Nancy remembers.

“Sounds intriguing,” Ned comments. “Are there any fun business electives?”

“Uh, yeah, there’s, uh… Well, let’s see there’s. Um.” Frank takes a long sip of beer and avoids making eye contact with anyone. “Um.”

“Oh my god,” says Nancy. “You broke Frank.”

Ned snickers and Frank leans his head against his hand is distress, eyes wide.

“There are none,” he mumbles. He lets his hand fall to rest in his lap, looks completely lost for a second, then turns to Ned with too much seriousness and says, “A fun business elective does not exist. The closest would be a supervised independent study and research, but even then you have to meet with a professor all the time, and that’s not fun at all. It’s all just…boring.”

“Oh, that can’t be true,” Ned tells him quickly. He wanted to distract Frank from Nancy, but he didn’t mean to cause distress. So of course he does that thing where he immediately reaches out and touches the person’s arm he’s trying to comfort. In this case, that person is Frank. He is touching Frank’s arm reassuringly. And that arm is…muscular. Okay, wow. Ned’s not sure what to do with that information right now. “I’m sure there’s something _interesting_ about it, at least, if not fun. Like, uh, well. Economics! That was a fun class in high school, if I remember correctly. I’m sure you get to do some cool stuff with economics.”

“You liked economics?” Nancy asks disbelievingly.

“Well sure,” Ned says. His hand is still on Frank’s arm. It takes a second of processing to realize he should probably remove it now. “It was mostly just common sense. At that level it was, at least. I’m sure it gets much more complicated, right Frank?”

Frank nods. “I guess.”

“I bet you know a whole bunch of shit about economics that me and Nancy have no clue about. That’s pretty cool.”

“Couldn’t the same thing be said about you and…” Frank trails off, and a puzzled expression crosses his face. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I actually know what you majored in. You just graduated, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Ned beams, though he feels a little embarrassed. He likes boasting about finally earning his degree in his head, but talking about it to other people makes him feel a little conceited. “Chemical engineering.”

Frank’s eyebrows shoot up, clearly impressed. The embarrassment doubles. “Wow,” he says. “Do you know what you’re going to do now? Do you have a job lined up or anything?”

“Not really,” he admits. “I work part time at an office supply store right now, and in a few weeks I’m going to be a counselor at a summer camp for the last time. I’ve been working there every summer for, what, five years now?” He glances toward Nancy automatically for reassurance.

She nods at him. “This’ll be the sixth.”

“Wow, yeah, that’s right. But anyway, it’s going to be my last time before I start applying for serious jobs for adults with college degrees.” He laughs a little at himself, and he’s surprised to see Frank smiling with him.

Then their waitress comes back with their respective orders and Ned realizes that Nancy wasn’t really involved in that conversation very much at all. He feels a little guilty, but when he glances over at her, she’s excitedly digging into her food, not seeming to be bothered in the slightest. The rest of the meal is spent mostly in silence, with Nancy being the only one to really start conversations. But she’s never really been a gifted conversationalist, so once a question is answered they all fall back into silence again. But it’s okay, it’s a fairly companionable silence. Or at least Ned thinks it is. He can’t really speak for anyone else, but Nancy seems content, and Frank isn’t shooting him death glares or anything.

At the end of the meal, Frank reaches for the check, but Ned beats him to it.

“It's the least I can do, really,” he says. Even if Frank is enemy numero uno, he was still very polite about the whole date-crashing thing, and Ned owes him this much.

Frank looks a little uncomfortable at the prospect of not being the one to pay, and Ned doesn’t know if that’s because he wants to impress Nancy somehow, or if he feels guilty about having a guy who works at Office Depot pay for his meal. Either way, it’s ridiculous and honestly a little cute, the way his big eyebrows knit together in obvious distress. Ned finds himself grinning without meaning to.

“Don’t worry,” he tells Frank, voice practically a whisper so that maybe Nancy won’t hear. “You can get it next time.”

Frank seems a little flustered by it, based on the way his posture goes stick straight and he blinks a few times before narrowing his eyes and avoiding Ned’s gaze.

“Next time?” he repeats, voice equally low.

And that’s when Ned realizes it may have sounded like he was trying to imply that he and Frank might be going out at some point again, which was not what he had meant. Although, he didn’t mean to imply that Frank and Nancy should go out again either, so. Ned doesn’t actually know what he meant to imply, so he tries to play it off like he didn’t hear Frank’s question, instead turning away to write in a tip for the waitress. Was there going to be a next time? With the three of them? He doesn’t think he really wants to have to keep this up, but if Frank tries for another date, he doesn’t have much of a choice.

He finishes calculating the tip and looks up at Nancy, who begins to get out of her seat. They all walk outside together and pause awkwardly at the corner of the street. It seems that Nancy’s house is one way, and the hotel Frank is staying at is another. Frank is making the face that says _I want to walk you home and maybe kiss you at the door_ at Nancy, but she seems completely oblivious to it, glancing back and forth between the two men blankly. The only reason Ned picks up on _The Face_ is because he’s pretty sure he had to make it at Nancy like twelve times before she finally picked up on it and asked him to walk her home. For a detective, she is surprisingly good at ignoring the particulars of young men’s interest in her.

None of that really matters though, does it? Ned’s there, so if Frank were to offer to walk her, he’d just tag along and ruin the mood. And it’s not like Frank can really go for the sweet peck on the cheek, either, because then Ned would be there to make some cheeky remark like, _Oh, Mr. Hardy, do I get one too?_ accompanied by a fake swoon.

That’s just how it always is, though, isn’t it? Ned’s always just _there_. When he and Nancy were dating, he was always there on the other end of the phone. He was always there to walk Togo when she was away, which he still does, most of the time. And whenever she was home, he was there to take her to dinner, take her to the movies, especially back at the beginning when he had all kinds of free time. Untiring, unwavering, unbelievably patient. Good ol’ dependable Ned. Always just _there_.

“Well, this has been fun,” Nancy finally announces. “Thanks for dinner.” She kind of says it to both of them. She steps forward, kisses Ned on the cheek, then Frank. “Let’s all hang out together again sometime, okay? Oh, and let’s bring Bess and George and Joe, too. Then it’ll really be a party!” She’s already walking away as she speaks, calling it out to them as she crosses the street.

Before he knows it, he and Frank are left standing alone on the sidewalk, staring after her. He shuffles his feet, wondering if he should say something.

“Thanks for paying,” Frank says, and when Ned meets his eyes he doesn’t look annoyed, or spiteful, or anything like that, surprisingly. His eyes look genuinely grateful, somehow, if eyes can even do that. Frank’s can.

“No problem,” he replies. He almost apologizes for crashing the evening, but he realizes that would give it away that he’d planned this. “Thanks for letting me join,” he says instead, and he hopes that his eyes look even half as genuine as Frank’s do.

“No problem,” Frank echoes. “Take care, Nickerson.” And then he’s turning around and walking away too, and Ned just stares after him, trying to shake the feeling that he missed something.

\---

It’s a beautiful Tuesday afternoon. The sun is shining, not a single cloud is in the sky, it’s hot but a little less humid than it usually is for June. Flowers bloom, birds sing, children splash in the pool, and Ned is going to go hang out in a dark building with no windows to play laser tag with Joe.

Or, he’s supposed pick Joe up from his hotel so they can go play laser tag on this lovely Tuesday afternoon, only Joe is texting him that he’s so sorry but he’s not ready yet and it’s gonna be a while and maybe he should just come up to the room and hang out for a little bit while Joe gets ready?

Ned types back “Okay laughing out loud” and then some emojis. He doesn’t actually know what they are, but he figures Joe will enjoy it. Joe replies with the room number and a bunch of animals playing the saxophone emoji. Ned gets out of his car and trudges toward the hotel lobby, thinking about how incredibly silly that is. A caterpillar playing a saxophone? Pssh. The idea of it is so incredibly hilarious to him that he’s still smiling when he gets up to the third floor and knocks on the door to Joe’s room.

When the door opens, Ned is greeted by one incredibly tired looking Frank. His green eyes are half-lidded and beneath them are purple half-moons. His hair is a mess and he’s wearing a particularly ugly flannel with half the buttons undone, revealing a white undershirt with what might be a coffee stain on it. Ned doesn’t really get a good look because he’s suddenly distracted by a figure standing maybe ten feet behind Frank, wearing nothing but boxers and trying to tug a pair of jeans on but mostly failing and eventually falling over onto the carpeted floor. It all happens so fast that Ned doesn’t see the figure’s face, but he knows deep within his soul that it could only be Joe.

“Ow!” yells Joe from the floor.

Frank doesn’t even blink. “Welcome to the hot mess express,” he greets.

“Are you guys okay?” Ned asks warily. He steps in and offers Joe a hand up.

“We’re a little sleep deprived, if you hadn’t picked up on that,” says Frank.

“We’re also hyped up on caffeine,” Joe adds, pulling his pants on successfully this time. He can’t seem to get the button done though. “You can’t tell, but Frank is functioning at about seventy-five percent capacity right now, which cannot be said for how he was seven hours ago.”

“What the hell were you doing?” Ned asks, glancing back and forth between them in distress.

“Stakeout,” they reply in unison.

“You’re on a case?”

“Well,” Joe says, stretching out the “l” as he glances at his brother.

“Technically no,” Frank says, his voice going up at the end like it’s a question. “It’s just some basic surveillance stuff for a guy who’s convinced his life wealth is in danger but didn’t wanna pay top dollar for an actual security guard. Also his five thousand dollar watch is missing, but that’s like,” Frank pauses, flops down in a roller chair next to a desk covered in papers, stares down at the carpeted floor like it holds a secret, then slowly drags his gaze back up to Ned. “Sorry, what were we talking about?”

Joe just nods sagely before turning to rummage around through his suitcase for a shirt. “Seventy-five percent,” he repeats. “I told you.”

“Are you still gonna be okay for laser tag?” Ned asks as Joe puts a Spiderman T-shirt on backwards. “We can always go another day, you know? I’d be okay just watching a movie or something. Or letting you nap?”

“Oh, no, I’ll be fine,” Joe says, stretching out the words in a way that suggests he is not actually fine. “You just gotta wine and dine me a little bit first. Actually, don’t wine me. That’d probably be bad. I’m not even twenty-one, you _can’t_ wine me. Just dine me. I could really use some food. Good food, preferably.”

Ned hums, thinking. He’s trying really hard not to let that whole worried mother hen thing show, but honestly? He doesn’t think these two goobers would even notice. Frank is drawing circles on one of the pieces of paper on the desk, his face mere inches away from the paper like he has to get that close to see it properly. And Joe is putting a pair of boxers on his head and climbing up onto one of the two beds, proclaiming that he is the true Captain Underpants. His shirt is still on backwards. Ned sighs. He feels like it’s almost dangerous to leave them alone, but it’s probably true that they haven’t eaten enough today. He’d go for room service, but it’s so expensive and usually not all that good anyway…

He takes a deep breath, mind made up. “Okay,” he says in his Camp Counselor Leader Voice. Both Hardy’s look up immediately, or in Joe’s case, lift the waistband of the boxers from over his eyes. “I’m going to run out and get you guys some food and we can all have a nice lunch in, alright? You two just stay put.”

“Whatever you say, Señor,” Joe says and waves him off like Ned’s his husband going to war.

“You’re a saint,” Frank calls out as Ned snatches a room key before he closes the door.

A little under an hour later, Ned lets himself back into the hotel room while holding a massive paper bag full of Indian food from his favorite restaurant in town. He can’t really see over how tall the bag is in his arms is, but it smells delicious so hey, who really needs to see anyway? He kicks the door shut behind him and makes his way towards what he thinks is a bed to set the bag down on, and once he can see over it he’s greeted yet again by Frank. This time he’s clutching a cup of coffee with both hands, eyes wide with surprise. He’s sitting on the bed Ned has set the bag down on, an impressive stack of fluffy white pillows behind his back and his legs stretched out in front of him. He has removed his ugly flannel and changed into a pair of gray sweatpants. He also has a pair of fuzzy pink socks on. Huh.

After a few seconds of staring at each other, Frank’s eyes droop to half lidded and his grip on his coffee relaxes. “Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

“It is,” Ned replies dumbly. “Me.”

“When I heard the door open I panicked because I didn’t remember giving the key to anyone.”

“Oh!” Ned laughs. “Yeah, sorry, I grabbed it ‘cause I wasn’t sure you two would be awake when I got back, but I still wanted to be able to share this food with you.” He gestures to the paper bag.

“Well, you were right about one of us,” Frank huffs, glancing sideways at the other bed on the opposite side of the room. Joe has fallen asleep face down with the blankets twisted this way and that all around him and half the pillows on the floor. The pair of underwear is no longer on his head, at least.

“Can he… Can he breathe like that?” Ned asks, tilting his head to try to see if Joe’s mouth or nose are exposed to the air. He really can’t tell, and it makes him worried.

“Oh, he’s fine,” Frank tells him as he sits up a little, sets his cup of coffee on the nightstand between the two beds. “It’s actually better if he’s like that. Sometimes he sleeps with his eyes open, it’s really creepy. It’s better when I can’t see his face.”

Ned can’t hide his disbelief and it causes his grin to come out a little sideways. Frank pauses to look at him, eyes still tired and slow to process. The corners of his lips tug upwards just barely.

“Anyway,” Frank says. “Thanks for bringing food, I’m starved. Do you mind?” He crawls across the bed and starts to unfold the bag.

“No, no, go ahead. There’s forks and spoons and everything in there, knock yourself out.”

Frank makes a non-committed grunting sound that Ned thinks means thank you, but he’s really not sure. He stands there awkwardly, looking around. The room seems to have been tidied up some; the papers that were scattered across the desk are in a neat stack and the curtains have been pulled half-shut so the light that enters the room is a cozy sort of glow. Joe’s arm twitches, which is reassuring, in a way.

“You just gonna stand there all day?” Frank asks, voice muffled slightly from a mouth full of food.

Ned turns back around to face him, wringing his hands together absentmindedly. Frank’s eyes immediately snap their focus to the movement. “I, uh.” Ned pauses. “There’s not many places to sit around here.”

Frank glances around the room. “You can sit here.” He pats the space next to him on the bed. He even removes a few pillows from the stack he’s leaning against and sets them up for Ned. “See? I won’t make you try to sit next to Joe. He can be a bit of a violent sleeper sometimes.”

“So he sleeps with his eyes open _and_ he’s violent?”

Frank smirks. “Yep. Growing up with him was just…such a good time, you know?”

Ned rifles around the bag of takeout until he finds a container of pakora, then he kicks off his sneakers and shrugs off his old varsity jacket before sitting down in the spot Frank made for him.

“So,” Ned starts as he opens the container in his hands. “Are you feeling better? You seem…more cognizant of your surroundings.”

“Yeah,” Frank laughs. “I made more coffee. I’ll probably crash again soon, but I don’t know. I felt like there was something I was supposed to stay up for, and it turns out I was right. It was you.” He grins with his nose all scrunched up, boyish and honestly way more charming than necessary. “Speaking of crashing, though,” he continues, and Ned has to blink a few times to get himself to focus on what he’s saying. “Please tell me you took a video of whatever the hell Joe was doing before you left. I wasn’t really paying attention to him, but he had underwear on his head and that has to mean he was doing something embarrassing, right?”

Ned laughs a little as he bites into his food. “Yeah, it was pretty embarrassing,” he admits, glancing at Joe. He has rolled over onto his side, but he’s facing the wall so Ned can’t tell if his eyes are open. “He was proclaiming himself as the real Captain Underpants, I think? I don’t actually know, it was really bizarre. And honestly? I was pretty concerned about you two so I didn’t even think to record it. Sorry.”

Frank laughs when he hears about his brother, but when Ned apologizes he stops and becomes serious. “Hey, it’s fine. I really appreciate what you did, bringing us food. Even if Joe’s asleep now, he’ll be so excited when he wakes up. We really need a little help sometimes. So, thank you, Ned.”

“You’re welcome,” Ned replies. He feels a little odd, being thanked so seriously, and he’s such an expressive person, it must show on his face. But Frank just looks at him for a long minute with a calm smile gracing his lips. Then he reaches for his coffee mug, takes a sip, and grimaces.

“Coffee does not go with whatever I’m eating,” he coughs. “Shit.”

Ned snorts, gets up to get him a bottle of water from the mini fridge underneath the TV. Frank smiles gratefully before downing half the bottle. “So,” he says. Coughs again. Blinks. “It doesn’t seem like Joe is going to wake up any time soon. Do you wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Sure,” Ned nods.

They end up watching a movie they find on the hotel’s cable. It’s already ten minutes in, but all the other options were infomercials or undercover cop shows, and Frank was vehemently opposed to anything that reminded him of the previous night. So they settle for the movie, but the acting is horrible and the plot makes no sense, so they make fun of most of it. About 45 minutes in, Frank stops making comments, and when Ned looks over, he’s fallen asleep with a mostly empty takeout container still resting on his stomach. His mouth hangs open just barely and his eyelashes flutter every now and then like he might be dreaming.

Ned smiles a little to himself before turning the volume on the TV down and getting up to put the food in the mini fridge. He walks over and puts the container that was on Frank’s lap into the trash, then he uses the half of the blankets he had been sitting on to fold over onto Frank so he won’t get cold while he naps.

He doesn’t have anything else planned for the afternoon, so he decides to sit back down and find out if something else has come on that isn’t quite as horrible as this movie. Maybe Joe will wake up in a little while and they’ll be able to hang out while he eats some food. Or maybe he won’t and Ned will just end up seeming a little bit creepy with how long he hangs out in Frank and Joe’s hotel room while they sleep. Oh well, it’s not like Joe has ever been much of a judgmental guy.

Ned finds a drama on TV that’s in Chinese and he wants to see how much of it he can understand. He took Chinese all through high school and a year of it in college, so he thinks he’ll do okay, but he might surprise himself and remember more than he thought! He decides he’ll just have stick around and find out.

(It turns out he does remember quite a bit of it and he ends up getting sucked into the series. He watches four episodes before Joe blearily gets up to go to the bathroom, then when he comes back out he stares at the TV, then at Ned, then back at the TV, then he asks in genuine confusion, “Are we…did we fly to China? I thought we were still in River Heights.” It takes longer than it should to explain that they are in fact still in River Heights and that Ned speaks Chinese, because Joe keeps repeating “What the hell, Ned, why didn’t you tell me you speak Chinese, you could have been so helpful with my last case.”)

\---

In the next few days, Ned devises a fool-proof plan to distract Frank and Nancy from each other. It’s brilliant, really. And it works! Just not the way Ned had planned.

“Why the hell did you bring my brother here?” Frank asks him, arms folded across his chest. He sounds amused at least. Ned feels like he and Frank have some kind of unintentional budding friendship thing going on ever since that day at the hotel, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten about Frank’s unwholesome attempts to romance Nancy.

Which is why he’s here. The ingenious plan had been that Ned and Joe would _just happen_ to run into Frank and Nancy at the mall, and Joe would distract Frank while Ned distracted Nancy until someone decided it was getting late and they should all go their separate ways. It was very simple. And yet here they are.

“Well,” Ned says, heaving a sigh, “if you want the honest truth, he was supposed to distract you.”

“He sure is doing a fine job of it,” Frank mutters, glancing at Joe and Nancy through the window of the pet store.

They’re enthusiastically petting a bunch of fluffy white puppies while Ned and Frank wait outside. Ned is allergic to mice and couldn’t stop sneezing the second they walked in the store, and Frank had offered to keep him company outside after Joe grabbed Nancy’s arm and dragged her over to look at all the different animals.

After a moment, Frank breaks out into a grin and a huff of a laugh escapes his lips. “You should have known.”

“Hm?”

“Joe won’t listen to anyone. You tell him to do something, even ask him to do it nicely, and he might agree but at the last second he’ll do something different, just ‘cause he can. ‘Cause it’s not what you asked.”

Ned glances over at them, smiles a little himself. Now Joe is lifting two puppies into Nancy’s face so they can lick her nose. She laughs, leans away and Joe makes a sad face, tells her rather loudly that they feel rejected, maybe so Ned and Frank can hear. She takes them from Joe’s hands, holds them close and tells him to take a picture with that old Polaroid camera she takes everywhere. Ned doesn’t think he’s seen her look so happy in a long time.

“Why’d you two come to the mall, anyway?” Ned asks. “Seems kind of… high school.”

Frank rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t my idea, believe me. Nancy wanted to do something practical, which meant going to Target to look for new bath towels because Togo stained all of hers with mud, apparently. Then she wanted to go to that cookie place, the one inside the mall, which was where we were headed when you and Joe showed up.”

“Cookie place? You mean the Baker’s Dozen?”

“I don’t know,” Frank shrugs, “we never actually made it. It’s not like I know all the cookie places here. I’ve only visited twice.”

“Well, if you want cookies that actually have a flavor other than corn syrup, you’ve gotta go to Sugar ‘N Spice. They have a new special every week, and they release a brand new cookie recipe the second Tuesday of every month. Last month’s was a piñata cookie, where there’s an air pocket in the middle of the cookie and they put sprinkles in there that fall out when you break it open. Talk about ingenuity.”

Frank blatantly stares at him, eyebrows raised in amazement.

“What?” Ned asks, suddenly uneasy.

“You’re just…surprisingly enthusiastic about cookies.”

Ned grins sheepishly, glancing away. “You get to know the places that serve stress foods pretty well when your girlfriend is an international detective,” he says. “Er, well, ex-girlfriend.” When he looks back at Frank, something in his face has changed. He almost looks sad, but then again he’s got those slightly downturned eyes that look a little sad no matter what he’s feeling.

“We should go sometime,” Frank says quickly.

“What?”

“That cookie store,” he clarifies. He looks away, flustered. Ned’s stomach feels like it does a little summersault. “We should go there. When you’re free.”

Ned blinks at him, disbelieving. “Sure,” he finds himself saying without even thinking.

“Okay.” Frank nods to himself a little. Then he turns away and walks into the store towards Nancy and Joe, laughing when a puppy tries to bite Joe’s nose. Ned is left staring after him for the second time this week, feeling a little dizzy and not quite knowing why.

\---

Ned is reading while sitting on the shared patio in front of his apartment. It’s a warm, sunny afternoon and a large tree near the building shades the table and chairs he’s seated at. The breeze is gentle enough that it doesn’t rustle the pages of his book but it manages to stir the wind chimes one of his neighbors has hung off of their balcony a few stories up. It’s the most beautiful day he’s seen all summer, maybe even all year.

He has his favorite pair of reading glasses on, which are also his _only_ pair, since he lost all the others. These are so clunky they’re practically impossible to lose. He doesn’t really _need_ them, per se, but he has found that the increased size of whatever it is he’s reading helps him focus his attention on it more. They also really helped in all of his chemistry classes when he had to read and balance excruciatingly long equations.

Today, though, he’s not reading about chemistry or anything pertaining to his newly earned degree because honestly, the boy deserves a break. Instead he’s reading a Japanese surrealist novel that he heard about online a while ago. He’s starting to feel like maybe he should have done a little bit of research as to what he’s gotten himself into, though, because he’s kind of lost and feels like he could really use some context.

He doesn’t realize he’s spacing out until the sound of footsteps and a familiar-sounding murmur draws his attention to the sidewalk in front of the building. He can just barely make out the words being said, something like, “Come on, we’ve been walking for twenty minutes. Just hurry up and go, okay? I’ve been so patient, I’ve even been carrying around this stupid doggy bag for four blocks, now would you please just _go_?”

“Frank?” Ned calls out, his tone disbelieving. But sure enough, Frank rounds the corner with a leash in his hand, Togo at the end of it. Frank has a black long sleeve shirt on with the sleeves pushed up and a really nice pair of dark blue cutoff jeans on. Ned’s not sure what exactly about them are so nice, but they just look… really good. Frank’s face, however, looks slightly startled and a little confused. Togo looks carefree as ever, tail wagging and tongue hanging out of his mouth as he pants happily. When the dog sees Ned, he immediately barrels forward to say hello and pulls Frank along with him.

“Ned?” Frank asks as Ned sets his book down and scratches Togo’s back, laughing. “What’re you doing here?”

Ned blinks up at him. “I _live_ here,” he says after a pause.

This time Frank blinks. “Oh.”

“Do you wanna sit down?” Ned gestures to the chair across from his.

“Uh, sure.” Frank sits down and glances around at the apartment building while Togo flops down on his back, belly up in the air as he wriggles around on the ground. Ned laughs again.

“So, you’re walking Togo, huh? That’s always fun.”

Frank’s focus zeroes in on Ned as soon as he starts speaking. It’s kind of alarming, having his eyes look over Ned’s face so closely, like he’s searching for any indications of deception or deceit. Anything that might give him away. Ned wonders if Frank even knows he’s doing it, or if it’s just a part of him. Just instinct.

“If you call walking up and down twelve blocks to no avail fun, then yeah. Walking Togo is loads of fun.”

Ned snorts. “Have you gone to the park on the corner of 64th and Oak Street?”

“What?” Frank asks. “No, I didn’t even know those streets existed. Nancy just asked me to walk him so that she could go…I don’t know what she’s doing, actually. I didn’t even think to ask. She just handed me a leash and shoved me out of her house so fast it didn’t even cross my mind.”

Ned nods, humming. That sounds pretty typical of Nancy. “Well, that’s Togo’s favorite park. He always behaves if you take him there. He also manages to find a new ball each time we go there. It’s kinda funny. Do you want me to give you directions?”

Frank doesn’t respond, just stares at Ned.

“Or I could walk you there?” Ned offers uncertainly.

Frank’s eyes narrow. Ned glances to the left, then the right.

“What?” he finally asks.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” Frank murmurs.

Really? This is about the glasses? “They’re readers.”

“They make your eyes look bigger, so you’re kind of…doe-eyed.”

Ned bites his lip to try to hide the shy – albeit slightly confused – smile that tries to pull at his mouth. He has no idea what to say. He just kind of stares at Frank instead, who straightens up in his seat and looks down at Togo.

“I’d love it if you could show me where the dog park is, actually, since Togo seems to like you. And while I do have a better sense of direction than my brother, it’s still surprisingly not all that great. So if you really meant it…” He trails off, looks up at Ned hopefully.

“Yeah,” Ned says before he can think about it too much. “No problem, just let me put my book inside.”

Frank smiles and _wow_ those are some insanely straight teeth. Ned tries to imagine what Frank must have looked like with braces, because there is no way those are natural. His brain conjures an image of an awkward middle school aged Frank, with those dark eyebrows furrowed above bright green eyes that still retain something child-like, a crooked smile barely revealing a glance of silver on his teeth. He has no idea if this image is accurate, and is suddenly overcome with the urge to text Joe and ask him to dig up any pictures of Frank from middle school, just to know if he really was as endearingly dorky as Ned is imagining.

Ned shakes the thought away and grabs his book, turns and takes it inside. He leaves it on the coffee table with his glasses set neatly on top, makes sure to grab his keys and lock the door on the way out. When he exits the building, Frank is solemnly watching Togo attack his shoelaces, chewing and pulling at them and growling playfully. Frank looks like he has accepted the inevitable defeat of his shoes and is just patiently waiting for the end. Ned can’t help the embarrassing giggle that bubbles out of his mouth.

“It’s not funny,” Frank says.

“It is, though.” Ned steps in front of him, still laughing a little. “Togo,” he says, and the dog looks up immediately. “Stop it.”

Togo spits the laces out of his mouth and sits politely, the picture of innocence.

“How did you do that? Why does he listen to you? I need answers, Nickerson, and I need them now.”

Ned laughs again. “Togo and I,” he says as dramatically as he can, “we have a history. Don’t we, Togo?”

Togo’s tail wags. Frank groans, but he’s smiling through it.

“Here, do you mind?” Frank hands Ned the leash as he stands up.

The walk to the dog park is short but it feels even shorter, somehow, when he and Frank are together and talking about…nothing, really. Just stupid stuff that doesn’t matter, but it’s nice. Frank tells him about his friends back in Bayport, a bunch of names Ned knows he won’t be able to remember. It’s still nice to hear, though, and there’s something endearing about the fond lilt in his voice when he describes them all. In turn, Ned tells him about all the pranks he and his older sister orchestrated on each other when they were kids, and how after a particularly horrible incident involving a large amount of marbles they were officially banned by their parents from ever setting up a prank again. Frank says he had no idea Ned had a sister, asks why he never mentions her. When Ned clams up and tries to brush off the question, Frank encourages him to talk to her, work it out. Says there’s no one you can rely on quite like a sibling, and there’s a weight in his voice that makes Ned’s heart sink a little. It’s the first time someone’s given him advice about her that didn’t feel insincere, and Ned forces himself to say he’ll try it, if only because Frank actually seems to care.

Once they get to the park, it occurs to Ned that talking to Frank is actually very pleasant when it’s just the two of them. Ned doesn’t feel the need to try to distract or separate anyone, and Frank isn’t mildly annoyed about being distracted or separated. There’s nothing else to really focus on except each other’s company. And Togo, of course.

\---

The realization hits Ned at 2:30 AM when he can’t stop thinking about how nice Frank has been to him the past couple of days. It hits him like a ton of bricks, and he almost feels like he sinks lower into his mattress with it. He’s overcome by a slight wave of nausea, and he tries to swallow it down but it won’t leave.

The only possible reason Frank is being so nice to him is because he thinks if he gets Ned on his good side, he’ll be allowed to date Nancy. Ned doesn’t know why it hurts so much to realize this, why it feels like he’s being punched in the gut seven times over, but it does.

After the thought settles, Ned makes up his mind. Frank’s got another thing coming to him if he thinks he can get away with that. Ned just has to step up his game. Be extra obnoxious and rude, as long as it means Frank and Nancy don’t end up together. He doesn’t have a lot of experience being rude and obnoxious, not on purpose at least. But when has lack of experience stopped him any other time in this whole fiasco? He’ll just Google it or something. In fact, he may as well start now.

He pulls out his phone and starts poking around the internet for some solid advice on how to be a class-A piece of shit. Half an hour later, he passes out with the edge of his phone digging into his face, and when he wakes up at roughly 9AM, there’s a deeply ingrained line on his cheek from it. He groans and texts Joe.

 _Any word on the next big date?_ he writes.

_nada. frank wont tell me anythign i think hes on to me. i’ll ask bess tho!!_

_Why Bess?_

_bc she will ask nance and nace wont suspect anything frm her and then she can tell me and no 1 will kno im helping u ruin lives. duh!!!!! also i kina just want an excuse to tlak to bess lol_

Ned sighs and stares at his ceiling for a solid minute before willing himself to get out of bed and clean up for the day. When he gets out of the shower, a text is waiting for him from Joe.

_they’re going to a play on saturday at 7:30. i think u better grab a ticket 4 tht one lol idk if there’s arranged seating or somth tho?? sorry man_

Ned writes back _Okay thanks a bunch_ before putting on his bright red Office Depot shirt, grabbing a protein bar and a bottle of water, and heading out the door.

On his break, he looks up what play is happening on Saturday night and how much it’d cost to go. The play looks kind of dreadful, but at least that’ll give him something to be annoying about. Luckily the seating is open and the ticket is only $15, so now all he has to do is practice being an asshole and wait for Saturday.

\---

Ned straightens his tie in the bathroom mirror for what feels like the nine millionth time. He’s pretty sure a suit is appropriate for a play. Or should he have gone more casual? He has no idea. He hasn’t been sleeping well and he can’t think too hard about things or he’ll start to get confused.

He sighs and forces himself to get out of the bathroom, get his shit together. He grabs his phone, wallet, keys. If he doesn’t leave soon, he might miss his chance at getting a seat next to Frank and Nancy, which would defeat the whole purpose of this catastrophe. But before he heads out the door, he stops to ask Burt how he looks.

“Good,” Burt replies from his spot on the couch, looking him up and down. “A little bit like you’re about to have an aneurysm, but good.”

Ned deflates a little, but carries himself out to his car anyway. As he puts the car in drive, he starts to realize how much he doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to be a horrible person, doesn’t want to ruin a perfectly nice evening out for Nancy, but he has to, right? If Ned doesn’t stop this from happening then Nancy will be in a lot of danger _all_ the time instead of just _most_ of the time, and she’ll probably _die_ if she gets into any more dangerous situations, and no one wants _that_. So Ned _has_ to do this. This is all for her. It’s not a choice.

In order to motivate himself (or _get hyped_ , as his good friend Joe might say) he shoves the first CD he can find into his car’s CD player and turns the volume up. What comes through the speakers is not all that helpful, though, so he skips forward a few tracks until Katy Perry’s voice sings out, “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?” and Ned nods to himself. He may not be a big fan of Katy Perry as a person, but this song is a true gem, okay?

The theater’s parking lot is almost full, which Ned thinks is kind of sad because really. The synopsis of this play had just looked _awful_. Why do so many people want to see it? Why do they want to do this to themselves?

He tries not to kill his own mood though, forces a little bit of a spring into his step when he gets out of the car. He actually ends up skipping to the door, which is fun, but it’s also kind of weird because he’s 22 and he’s skipping. But whatever! He’s a man on a mission!

Once he’s actually inside the theater, he takes a second to look around. He’s never actually been inside, never had a reason, so he’s a little taken aback by how beautiful it is. Maybe that’s why people come here, for the general aesthetic and atmosphere, not the performances.

He scans the crowd of people already sitting down, figures if he can just find Nancy’s head of bright red hair he’ll be set. Instead he accidentally spots Deirdre on the other side of the theater, looking miserably at what Ned assumes is her date. He doesn’t know why she looks miserable, doesn’t really care to know. He turns around so that she won’t see him and tries looking again. Goddamn, where are they?

He turns toward the doors just in time to see Frank and Nancy turn the corner, arm in arm like they own the world with how good they both look. Frank is wearing a tux and somehow it doesn’t matter that he’s totally over dressed, because he looks like he just walked out of a magazine. His hair is pushed back and glossy and the lights in the theater do something to the shadows on his face, makes everything about him look sharper.

Nancy is wearing a bright red dress with thin straps that show off the freckles on her shoulders and she’s wearing mascara, so her usually pale lashes stand out. She looks amazing. She always looks amazing, but this is one of those looks that slaps you in the face with how stunning it is. Ned kind of wants to die because _wow_. They both look so _good_.

What really stuns him though, is that when Frank sees him, his face lights up. It’s a subtle change in his features, something you’d only notice if you were really looking, but it's there. It’s like he’s pleased that Ned is here. Which shouldn’t be right, should it? That’s not how this is supposed to work.

Ned is still reeling when the pair walk over to him, so he can’t think of anything to greet them with other than, “You look— you both— well, I mean, you look great!” He ends up saying it to the space in between them so that maybe they won’t realize he has no idea who he thinks he should be saying it to. He’s kind of screaming on the inside.

“Why thank you,” Frank says, but he doesn't sound serious, like he’s joking. Ned smiles at him hopefully, and he finds Frank smiling back at him.

“What brings you here?” Nancy asks, and she’s smiling politely but her voice is different, just barely. She’s cautious.

“No time for that,” Ned tells her, mostly because he forgot to think of an excuse. He glances over his shoulder. “Deirdre’s over there and I don’t think either of us want to see her, so lets sit down first.”

Nancy leans towards him to glance over his shoulder. “Shoot, you’re right. Okay, come on.”

Nancy leads the way with Frank on her heels, asking who the hell Deirdre is and why we’re all so concerned about her. Ned ends up trailing after them like a lost duckling, which means that Frank ends up in the middle of Ned and Nancy. Not ideal, but he’ll make do.

Once Nancy is done explaining her and Ned’s long history with one Deirdre Shannon, she asks Ned why he’s here again. “You’ve never really shown interest in this kind of thing,” she says, leaning forward in her seat so she can see his face.

“It just looked so terrible, I couldn’t miss it,” he says, trying to keep his voice upbeat like he has no idea how rude that sounds.

Frank and Nancy make the same face, eyebrows coming together and eyes narrowing, both confused and annoyed.

“Really?” Nancy asks, disbelieving. “I heard it was supposed to be good.”

“Who’d you hear that from?” Ned asks, forcing something of a sneer into his voice.

“Bess.”

“Then there’s probably some actor she thinks is hot in it, right?”

“Excuse me?” Now she sounds annoyed and defensive.

Frank is doing a pretty good job of keeping quiet, but when Ned looks at him he sees that it’s because Frank is shocked, like he doesn’t even believe what he’s hearing.

“Didn’t you read the synopsis of this play online?” he asks, this time directed at Frank.

“A little bit of it,” Frank replies slowly, like it’s some kind of trick question.

“And you didn’t think it sounded absolutely horrendous?”

“No?”

Ned hums thoughtfully. “Guess we just have different tastes then.”

“I guess so,” Frank mutters, then turns to face Nancy, who looks thoroughly pissed off. Whoops. He starts speaking to her in a low voice, back completely facing Ned. Probably apologizing, as he should, since none of this would have to happen if he would just lay off.

Frank finally goes back to sitting normally just before the lights go down, and in that moment Ned gets a glimpse of Nancy. She’s staring at him with some kind of resolution in her face. Something seems to have clicked into place in her mind. Ned swallows nervously. Sometimes Ned forgets she can still read him like a book.

The opening scene makes little to no sense, but when he glances over at Nancy again, her face is completely blank. Does she understand it or is she zoning out? It’s hard to tell, so he goes back to trying to make sense of what is going on. After ten minutes, he can’t keep his mouth shut anymore.

“Holy shit,” he breathes. “This is worse than I thought it would be.”

Frank shushes him. Rude.

“Oh, come on,” he whispers, leaning to the side a little so Frank won’t be able to ignore him. “Try and tell me you aren’t thinking the same thing.”

“It might be better if you actually paid attention to the dialogue,” Frank suggests quietly, not taking his eyes off the stage.

“But that’s the _worst part_ —”

“Oh, my god, Nickerson.” He turns to face him and Ned is startled to find that their faces are closer together than he intended. “Shut up.”

“Fine, fine,” he says after a moment. He turns back to the stage, leaning his chin in his hand, elbow resting on the armrest between his and Frank’s seats.

The entire first act continues like that. Ned complains, Frank banters back a little before telling him to shut the fuck up, then he keeps quiet until he can’t take it anymore and he starts up again. As time goes on, Frank starts getting more and more frustrated, until finally the curtains close and he looks like he could kill someone. Ned belatedly wonders if he took it too far.

Before the applause even has a chance to die down, Frank is grabbing Ned’s wrist and yanking him from his seat, dragging him through the aisle and towards the exit. Frank shoves the door with so much force that it flies open, cold air rushing against Ned’s face as he’s pulled through the doorway. Once they’re outside, Frank practically throws Ned’s arm away from himself, and Ned stumbles back with the force of it.

When he looks at Frank’s face, he’s mad. Actually, mad doesn’t quite cover it. He’s furious. His shoulders are tense and his eyes keep darting back and forth across Ned’s face like he’s searching for something, maybe trying to figure out which one of Ned’s features will bruise easiest. Ned has got a solid two inches on him, but he suddenly feels smaller somehow, with the way Frank looks like he’s about ready to snap him in half like a twig. Ned takes a step back involuntarily.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Frank asks, and he sounds surprisingly calm, which only makes him more intimidating.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ned replies, but his voice doesn’t sound confident at all and he knows Frank can see right through it.

“Don’t play dumb. I know what you’re doing. But _why_ are you— why are you acting like this? ’Cause I thought you— I though _we_ were—” he cuts himself off, looks down like he’s lost. “I don't know. I don’t know what I thought, but obviously I was wrong.”

Something feels like it folds in half in Ned’s chest. “Frank—”

He doesn’t know what he was going to say, but Frank cuts him off. His fingers pinch the bridge of his nose and his eyes are squeezed shut, but his hands drop to his sides and he looks Ned right in the eye when he speaks. “Just tell me one thing. What kind of twisted up logic is running through your head that makes you think you can act like that? ‘Cause I know you, or at least I thought I did, and this isn’t you. So what is it? What’s your reason?”

Ned feels his heart beating faster, but he can’t think of any excuses. He’s too busy wishing he weren’t here right now.

“Do you still love Nancy?” Frank asks, and his composure is slipping, he’s starting to sound more desperate. “Is that it?”

“No!” Ned says immediately, louder than he meant. It’s not that. It’s never been that.

“Then what? What is it? Why do you keep butting in? Why can’t I have her?”

“I— I don’t know!” he admits.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Ned repeats, quieter, avoiding Frank’s eyes. Why _is_ he so against Frank dating Nancy? At first it had been because he thought Frank was mean and careless, and if he didn’t mind putting himself in danger then he wouldn't mind putting Nancy in danger too. But it turns out that’s not true. He knows Frank now, knows that none of that is true. Frank is kind, wants to save people and help them fix what’s broken in their lives. And he’s brave, not careless. And patient. He’s put up with so much from Ned these past few weeks and only now is he hitting a breaking point.

Ned doesn’t know what’s wrong. All his motives have been proven wrong and he should really just step back now, let go of it all, move on, but something still doesn’t feel right. Some part of him is still vehemently opposed to the idea of Frank and Nancy even holding hands, but he doesn’t know why. The thought of them together makes him feel awful, makes his chest tight and a horrible lump form in his throat.

“I don’t know,” Ned says for the third time, sounding lost. He finally looks Frank in the eye. God, he has pretty eyes. He wonders if Nancy has ever told him that. “I’m sorry,” he says, and then he looks down and breathes before looking up again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and I’m sorry, and I’ll just… back off, okay? I won’t bother you anymore. Sorry.”

Frank’s face changes from angry to confused, then hurt, then back to confused again. Ned tries to swallow the lump in his throat, but it won’t go away. He pulls his eyes away from Frank’s, turns around, heads straight for the parking lot and doesn’t look back. He can hear the door to the theater open behind him, hears Nancy’s voice asking, _What happened?_ He can’t make out the low murmur of Frank’s reply, decides it’s better that way. He gets in his car, starts the engine, and drives.

\---

When he gets home, Burt is watching television and has an entire box of pizza open on the coffee table with only a few slices missing. The light from the TV illuminates the room in dark blues and reds, makes the condensation on his can of soda glisten. Ned flops down on the couch next to him with a groan and asks if he can have some of the pizza. Burt nods and turns down the volume on whatever show he’s watching. It looks like a crime drama. Ned tries to ignore the way his stomach drops. He pulls a slice of pizza away from the rest, takes a bite, and frowns miserably at the TV.

“How’d it go?” Burt asks, casually, barely glancing away from the screen. Ned just groans. “That bad, huh?”

He nods. “I don’t really wanna talk about it,” he mumbles.

“Alright,” Burt replies, but he uses that tone of voice that says _We are definitely going to talk about this later because I am your friend and I’m concerned about you, you big baby._

Ned spends the rest of the night on the couch with his tie hanging loose around his neck, drinking disgustingly cheep beer and eating pizza even after it gets cold. His brain can’t seem to put together a coherent thought, so he just zones out to the sound of gunshots and yelling that pours out of the TV’s speakers.

When the all of the pizza is gone and two excruciatingly long episodes are over, Burt forces him to go to bed. If it was up to him, he would have just fallen asleep on the couch, but instead he lets his roommate pull him up by the arm and shove him towards his room. After he changes into sweats and a T-shirt, he falls face-first into his bed and falls asleep easier than he has in a week.

He has the next day off from work, thankfully, because he doesn’t wake up until one in the afternoon, at which point he blearily stumbles to take a piss and brush his teeth. He feels sick, but he’s also starving. He forces himself out to the kitchen where he pours a bowl of Lucky Charms. He glances around, calls out for Burt but there’s no response. He must be out. Ned drags himself to the couch and pulls a blanket over his shoulders. He stares at the wall as he starts to eat. He feels…miserable.

Halfway through the bowl of cereal, he hears his phone go off and finds it in between the couch cushions. He doesn’t remember changing his ringtone to the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song, but when he glances at the caller ID, everything seems to make sense.

“Hello, Joe,” he greets.

“Hey Ned! What’s going on? Anything you wanna update me about?” He sounds like he knows something.

Ned decides not to waste any time. “I fucked up,” he whines, dragging out the last word dramatically.

“No shit,” Joe replies with an annoying amount of pep. “Did you know that between the four of us, I am the official go-to man?”

Ned blinks. “What?”

“Last night, before Frank even got back, I got a text from Nancy asking if I knew why you were acting like such a dick.”

“She said that?”

“Well, not in so many words. But listen up, this story is not over!”

“Okay, I’m listening. You have my full undivided attention.” And it’s actually true, since all he’s doing is staring at a blank wall. “Go ahead.”

“Okay, so I didn’t reply to her right away because I didn’t have the full story, or any of the story, for that matter. Then Frank gets back and he’s acting all emo which is never good. And I’m like, okay, this must be a group thing. So I try to ask him what happened, but he doesn’t wanna talk about it ‘cause when he gets emo he just wants to be left alone so he can think or whatever. Oh, also, while this is all going on, I’m in the middle of marathoning Danny Phantom because that show was the shit, right?”

“Right.”

“Right, so, because of whatever you did, I had to put it on pause to reply to Nance and tell her I had no idea what was going on but that I’ll work on figuring this out. Put my detective skills to good use, you know? So then I go try to get Frank to talk to me again, and all he’ll say is, and I’m quoting this exactly, ‘Ned Nickerson is an enigma.’ And I’m like—” he pauses, and Ned imagines that he’s doing a frustrated little flailing motion. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? That gives me absolutely nothing to work with! But he obviously needs more time to himself because when he starts saying dramatic shit like that there’s no point in trying to talk to him. So I went back to Danny Phantom and let him do his thing, and that was basically it last night, but then this morning I wake up to a call from Nancy, and she’s asking if I have any new info, and I say no, and then she starts going on and on about god knows what, yada yada I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention, it was seven in the morning. But anyway, the point is, when shit hits the fan, I am the go-between man for our little group.”

Ned blinks, trying to comprehend all of that. He takes a bite of cereal. “Well, Joe, I sincerely thank you for all of your efforts.”

“Yeah, no problem,” he says nonchalantly, as if he had not just been yelling about Frank’s apparent tendencies to revert back to his emo phase. “Hey, what’re you doing today? I promised Nancy I’d interrogate you. I’d do it over the phone but I haven’t really gotten to see you lately. Also I can tell if you’re lying easier if we do it in person.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ned says, laughing. “I’m not doing anything, just. Moping.”

“Moping? So something really did happen?”

“Yeah, I guess, I don’t know. Just come over. I’ll text you the address.”

“Okay, okay. See you soon, knick-knack Nickerson.”

Joe shows up fifteen minutes later in a Lyft, all smiles and sunshine. Ned feels like the plague in comparison to him, especially when they’re facing each other on opposite ends of the couch, Joe studying him quizzically.

“Why so glum, chum?” he pipes up.

“Oh my god, would you quit that?” Ned asks.

“What, having a good time?”

“Yes. It’s making it difficult for me to wallow in my own regret.”

“Boo-hoo, you sound like Frank. Speaking of which, what happened? You look terrible, which I wouldn’t normally point out, but I’ve never seen you look like this before. You’re usually all put together and energetic. Like a puppy.”

Ned thinks that’s a compliment, so he smiles a little crookedly before sighing and telling Joe everything he can remember from last night, including the moronic line of thinking that got him into this mess in the first place.

“I just couldn’t come up with any other reason he’d be so nice to me,” Ned groans.

“Did it occur to you that maybe Frank is just…a nice person?”

“No!” he exclaims, burying his face in his hands. “I know it sounds stupid, but why the hell would he be sweet to someone who’s trying to crash all of his dates? Even if you’re a nice person, it doesn’t make sense.”

Joe makes a face. “You realize that that’s exactly what you’ve been doing to him, though, right?”

Ned looks up, confused. “Huh?”

“You’re the one who’s been trying to crash his dates, but from what I’m understanding, you’ve been just as nice back. Even on the dates you’re crashing, well, except for last night. So you’re not making any sense either.”

Ned blinks, comprehending. He’s right. Who the fuck third wheels on a romantic dinner for two and then pays for it? Ned, apparently. He’s been just as unpredictable this whole time too, maybe even more so. Shit.

“I don’t get why you’re so upset about the whole thing, though,” Joe says. “You don’t want Nancy and Frank to date, which I can understand because if you put them together they’d probably never stop working on cases and just exhaust themselves to the point of hospitalization. Also if they start solving mysteries together, who the hell am I gonna solve them with? I mean, I already have to sometimes, with Frank in school But it’s so lonely, sometimes, being so far away with no one you can trust.” He goes silent for a moment, thinking. He blinks, refocuses his attention back on Ned. “That’s just me, though. Why are _you_ so against it?”

Ned grimaces, admits he doesn’t know.

“You don’t know,” Joe repeats, deadpan.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ned whines, pulling his blanket farther around himself. “All I know is that I feel guilty for ruining everything for them, but also when I think about them together I feel like I’m gonna puke. So. Whaddya make of that, detective?”

Joe makes a face Ned can’t read. “You don’t still like Nancy, do you?”

“No,” he says, maybe too loudly. He’s annoyed that people seem to think this is just some stupid jealousy thing. “She’s my best friend, but no. I love her, but I’m not. In love with her. We’re done.” He claps his hands together like he’s closing a book. Over.

“Okay,” Joe says slowly. He glances out the window, then locks eyes with Ned. “Do you like Frank?”

Ned’s brain short circuits from trying to process the question. He blinks repeatedly as the words sink in. No, he can’t like Frank. That’s just absurd. Why the hell would he like Frank? He has stunning eyes, sure, and he’s wonderful to talk to. Incredible to talk to, actually, as long as you haven’t intentionally pissed him off. And thoughtful, like when he’d offered to take Ned to Sugar ‘n Spice. Ned’s stomach flutters a little at the memory, the way Frank had acted so flustered about it. Then he thinks about the way Frank had looked at him last night: desperate, almost, his eyebrows drawn together above his eyes and his lips parted slightly, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. Like Ned was a puzzle he was tired of trying to solve and he just wanted an answer. He thinks about how his chest had ached at the sight, how he’d wanted to do something to fix everything but he couldn’t. Realizes now that it had been his heart that was aching, and that it still feels that way now.

Oh, god. Oh no. It all makes sense. And it’s all so _obvious_ , too. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Ned looks up at Joe with desperation written all over his face. “Shit,” he says, but it sounds kind of choked like he’s about to start crying.

Joe blinks and sits up, surprised. “Oh, shoot,” he says, and he scoots closer to Ned, puts a hand on each of his knees to ground him. “I mean, I had thought _maybe_ there was something there, but I didn’t know if…” he trails off, takes a breath. “You really like him?”

All Ned can do is nod. He feels both horrible and like he’s walking on air. It’s such a relief, to have the giddy rush of having feelings for someone wash over him, but it’s also so incredibly unfair. Why did he do this to himself? Why’d he have to get close to someone he has no chance with, someone who so obviously only has eyes for his ex girlfriend?

“Why,” Ned whines, putting his hands on each side of his face and staring resolutely down at the hole in the knee of Joe’s jeans. “Why me? Why him?”

“You must have a thing for detectives,” Joe suggests helpfully.

Ned makes a warbling groaning sound and it’s honestly the most pathetic noise he’s ever made. “I’m not even gay,” he says, like it’s an excuse. “I like girls. I dated Nancy.”

“You’ve dated a total of one girl since high school,” Joe says. Ned doesn’t think that’s supposed to make him feel like a loser, but it kinda does. “Maybe you’re bi, you know, and you just didn’t realize until now because you’d been with one person for so long.”

Ned nods a little. “I guess.”

“Hey, it’s okay, this is a lot to process. You’re just lucky you have a certified bisexual here to welcome you to the club.”

Ned laughs, smiles warmly at Joe. He smiles right back, and Ned feels like maybe it’ll be okay. “Thanks, Joe. You’re a really good friend, you know that?”

Joe smiles even bigger and laughs. “Flattery will get you nowhere, homeboy. Hey, what have you eaten today?”

Ned takes a second to process the sudden change in topic. “Uh, a bowl of cereal. Why?”

“That’s it?” Joe asks loudly. “No wonder you’re so miserable, you’re running on nothing. I’m gonna make you lunch. What do you have?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Shut up and let me make you a world class PB&J,” Joe insists determinedly. He gets up from the couch, then stops. “Oh, I know what’d be good.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts tapping rapidly on the screen.

“What are you doing?” He’s almost afraid to ask.

“I’m ordering a chocolate cake,” Joe mumbles.

Ned stares at him. “Why.”

“Because!” he says loudly, but he doesn’t look up from his phone. “Realizing you like someone and that you’re bi and then coming up with a fool-proof plan on how to confess your feelings requires the consumption of an entire chocolate cake, didn't you know that?”

“What? I am not going to confess my undying love to your brother.”

Joe looks up. “You love him?”

“What? No, I just—” he cuts himself off, feels his face heating up from embarrassment. Joe starts cackling and goes back to his phone.

“There. Done and done. One three-tier chocolate cake, coming our way. It’ll be here in an hour.”

“You’re having a chocolate cake delivered to my house,” Ned deadpans, face still burning.

“Yup. I even got to use a coupon. But first, peanut butter and jelly!” He bounces off to the kitchen while Ned collapses back onto the couch, rolling over to hide his face in the cushions. He feels like he’s in a state of shock and low-key wants to sleep his troubles away. He almost does, too, but then a few minutes later Joe comes barreling back into the living room with a plate in his hand and Kesha blasting from his phone, shouting about how it’s time to start estimating how much a hundred roses is going to cost and wait, _is a hundred even enough, maybe we should go with a thousand just to be safe. Why are you looking at me like that, Ned, I’m serious. If you wanna woo Frank you’re going to have to put in some fucking effort, you stupid giant._

\---

Ned does not end up with any solid plans on how to confess to Frank, so he decides he just won’t, since he’d probably end up getting rejected anyway. He does, however, end up with half of a massive chocolate cake left in his refrigerator. He had tried to get Joe to take some of it with him, but he said that if he took it back to the hotel room Frank might eat it and it would just be weird for Frank to eat the Realization of Bisexuality and Attraction Towards Frank Cake. Ned thought it was weird to title a cake like that to begin with, but he knew it was pointless to argue with Joe about it, so he just let it go. Burt ended up being really excited about the cake anyway, so it’s not like it was all going to waste or anything.

Instead of professing his feelings, he decides it’s best to just try to avoid Frank until he and Joe head back to New York. He’s not sure when that will be, and Joe doesn’t seem to have a definitive date either, so it seems that the rest of his last summer in River Heights will be spent trying to become invisible. Which is easier said than done, since he lives here and has to go out and do things like go to work and shop for groceries.

A week after his day of eating chocolate cake with Joe, though, he gets sick of only leaving the house for necessities and decides fuck it, he’s going out to dinner. There’s a casual little restaurant that’s popular with students because it’s cheap but still good that he hasn’t been to in a while. He doubts Nancy and Frank would go there, if their other rather grandiose dates were anything to go by. Frank seems to go all-out, and Ned tries to put a road block on his imagination before it can start thinking about what one of those dates would be like when it was just the two of them, in a universe where Frank felt the same way he did.

But enough of the angst! He’s determined to get something positive going on, something to distract himself from the way he stupidly broke his own heart. If he could he’d go in a pet store and pet some puppies, but he’d just start sneezing. His other option would be to go pet Togo and maybe take him on a walk, but Togo is Nancy’s dog, so that’s another no. So he has settled with a nice but cheap dinner, just something small to get the ball of positive energy rolling again.

When he walks in the restaurant, it's packed. He hadn’t expected that, since it’s summer and most of the students are gone. He glances around before heading to the small stand for the hostess and asking how long the wait will be. She says it’ll be twenty minutes, which isn’t too bad, so he gives her his name and shuffles to a corner out of the way to wait, where he accidentally bumps into someone.

“Sorry about that,” he mumbles, stepping away.

“You’re fine,” the person mutters, and Ned doesn’t know what compels him to turn and actually look at the guy, but when he does, he feels like the universe must be playing some kind of cosmic joke on him. It’s Frank. Of course it’s Frank.

Frank’s eyes are wide in bewilderment, but other than that his face is blank. He blinks owlishly up at Ned, and Ned feels his face heat up when he realizes they’ve been staring at each other for half a minute and haven’t said anything yet.

Ned coughs into his first awkwardly, looks away. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Frank says back, kind of quietly like he’s afraid he’ll scare Ned away if he speaks too loudly. Like a deer, easily spooked. “How’ve you been?”

“Good,” Ned says, and it’s not entirely a lie. Actually, it kind of is. Whatever. “You?”

“Good, good,” Frank says, nodding. He’s looking forward instead of actually facing Ned. “I’d be better if Nancy had cared enough to show up on time, but yeah. Pretty good.”

Ned can’t help it. He gasps. “She stood you up?” he asks in a low voice, completely disbelieving. He feels like a high school freshman who’s finally getting included on gossip that’s actually interesting.

“I guess so,” Frank says, but he doesn’t sound terribly upset. He actually laughs a little, like it’s just absurd. And it is. It is so absurd. Who the hell would miss a date with Frank? “I have no idea where she is. Getting a key from the mayor maybe?”

Ned laughs, and as he’s trying to think of something else to say so it doesn’t get even more awkward than it already is, the hostess walks over to them to tell Frank his table is ready. Ned avoids making eye contact with either one of them and is about to shuffle himself away again when Frank touches his arm lightly.

“Do you wanna share a table? It’s just so crowded, you know? We might as well.”

Ned blinks at him in disbelief. “I-I couldn’t,” he says, because _really_.

“No, no, come on.” This time Frank just grabs his arm and pulls him along, and Ned tries very desperately not to get turned on by Frank's impatience.

They sit down across from each other at a table for two and Frank looks at him funny. “Are you okay? Your face is all red.”

Ned laughs nervously, looking away. “It’s just kinda…hot in here. Because it’s so crowded. And it’s summer. I’m good, really.”

He knows that that was probably the most unconvincing response ever, but Frank only looks at him for a few seconds longer before shrugging and glancing down at his menu.

“You’ve been here before, right? Anything you’d recommend?”

Ned hums as he looks down at his own menu. “Well,” he starts, but he’s cut off by Frank’s phone going off.

He sends Ned an apologetic smile as he answers. “Hello? Oh, hey...It’s okay. What happened? ...What? …So you’re in Spain?”

Ned chokes a little, grabs his water and sips it while looking away like Kermit minding his own damn business.

“Yeah, okay… No, it’s fine. I’ll talk to you later… Okay, bye.”

Ned looks at him expectantly.

“That was Nancy,” Frank says as he shoves his phone back into his pocket.

“And?”

“And she’s in Spain.”

Ned doesn’t know what to say.

“She got a case at the last minute and took the first flight out without even thinking to tell…anyone, apparently. And she’s sorry but it’s really important.”

Ned is able to stay stoic for maybe ten seconds before he just loses it, laughing so hard he thinks he might cry. “I’m sorry,” he wheezes. He covers his mouth to try to stop himself from laughing more, but it’s no use.

“What is it?” Frank asks, and he sounds both confused and amused.

“I just,” he pauses to take a deep breath, calms himself down. People are starting to stare. “I thought for sure that that was like… That she’d only do that to me, you know? I thought that bolting off to the ends of the Earth without any warning was a side effect of dating me or something, but no. I guess she’s just like that, if she’ll do it to you too.”

Frank looks at him long and hard, and Ned’s laughter starts to die down for real this time, wondering if he said something wrong. Great. Leave it to Ned to mess up again, just when he thought things were going to be okay…

But then Frank starts laughing too, just a little at first, but it builds and soon the tension is melting away from their little table for two, with Ned internally losing his shit over how heavenly Frank’s laugh is, all light and airy.

They go back to the menu and order, and once the waitress is gone Ned notices that Frank’s T-shirt says something on it, but it’s so faded he can barely read it. “ATAC forever!” is what he thinks it says, and Ned has no idea what that stands for but he’s pretty sure Joe has said it before so it must be some kind of joke.

“What’s up?” Frank asks, glancing down at himself. “Is there a stain on my shirt or something?”

“No, I was just trying to read it,” he explains. “ATAC, what does that stand for?”

“Oh,” he says, “shit, I thought this was a plain one. Oh well. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but ATAC stands for American Teens Against Crime. It was the company Joe and I used to work for, the one we got all our cases from. They changed their name to “The Network” and Joe was really upset about it, so he made us these shirts to wear in protest.”

Ned grins a little. “I thought I remembered Joe saying something like that a while ago. Why’d they change the name?”

“I’m not sure,” he admits. “Maybe they were getting tired of having the word “teen” in the name. I don’t work for them anymore, but Joe got a position working with them more permanently so that he’ll have the five years experience it takes to get a private investigator license. He’ll be done in a year which is…” he trails off and heaves a sigh. “It’s something.”

“Am I detecting a hint of worried older brother syndrome?”

Frank grins and looks away, embarrassed. “A little, honestly. He goes off on his own sometimes when I’m in school and I swear to god, if I get a call from a hospital one of these days, I’m going to kick his ass.”

“Hospital?”

“Yes, he has a knack for getting himself knocked out and falling off of things. It’s usually fine when I’m there, but what if it happens when I’m gone?” His eyes go all wide like he’s psyching himself out, but then he takes a deep breath and kind of deflates. “Sorry, I just worry about him like hell sometimes.”

“It’s okay,” Ned says quickly. “You don’t need to apologize. I think it’s sweet that you care about him so much.”

Frank’s face flushes and he takes a sip of his water, maybe to hide his face. _Cute._

“Anyway,” Frank says, “if he can keep it together for another year and get his PI license while I graduate, we’ll be well on our way to opening our own agency. And then I’ll be back to making sure he doesn’t fall off of anything too steep. So it’ll be fine.”

“You’re gonna open up your own agency? That’s really cool.”

Frank’s face lights up and he sits up straighter in his chair, almost leaning in with excitement. “I know, won’t it be great? Working for ATAC was fine when we were still in high school, since they did most of the business side of things while we just solved mysteries, but once I’m done with school and Joe can quit, we’ll both have enough time for all of it, and we’ll be able to make a name for ourselves. It’s going to be so incredible.”

Ned kind of wants to cry because of how precious Frank is being. He thinks he can actually see a twinkle in his big green eyes. This is so unfair.

They continue to talk about Frank and Joe’s future detective agency until their food arrives and there’s a lull in the conversation as they both begin to eat.

“Wow, this is actually really good,” Frank comments. “I’ll have to come here again before I leave.”

“How much longer do you think you’ll be in town?” Ned asks, hoping he achieves some level of casualness in his tone despite how nervous he is about the answer. He can’t decide if he wants Frank to leave sooner so that Ned can force himself to move on faster, or if he wants to prolong his suffering and have him stay forever so he never has to stop seeing Frank’s pretty face.

“I’m not sure, honestly. We’re here because, well, I’m sure you already know that, so—”

“No, actually,” Ned cuts in before he continues. “No one ever explained that to me.”

Frank makes a face. “Seriously? I thought Joe was texting you during the entire car ride from the airport.”

“He was, but he was telling me about how much he likes O’Hare. He had a lot to say about the light tunnel.”

Frank rolls his eyes. “Figures. Well, we’re here because during the summer, I go back home, right? But my parents decided to renovate the entire house, so they’re staying with my Aunt Gertrude. Technically she has enough space for Joe and I to stay there too, but I would really rather not do that, so we decided to fly out here and spend the summer in River Heights, especially since The Network agreed to pay for our hotel if Joe agreed to do that surveillance stuff you heard about a while ago. So we might be here until my classes start, or we might head back New York a few weeks early and stay with one of our friends in Bayport. But we just don’t know yet, so.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a moment of increasingly awkward silence, during which Ned starts scraping at the scraps left on his plate so that his hands will have something to do. The scraping turns into tapping his fork against the plate, then against his other silverware, then both, and then his glass of water too. Frank starts giggling—this twenty-one year old boy starts _giggling_ —and it’s the sweetest thing Ned has ever heard, god help him. Ned’s little drum solo slows, and he looks up at Frank sheepishly, who is smiling so warmly Ned thinks he might melt.

“I didn’t know you had an affinity for the drums,” Frank says. “That was quite a beat you had going.”

“Yeah, didn’t you know I’m in a post-punk new wave 90’s emo-inspired SoundCloud band?”

This time Frank bursts out laughing, falls back in his chair with it. “You’re ridiculous,” he says, and Ned just beams at him.

When the check comes, Ned insists on paying for it, but Frank will only agree if he can take Ned to “that cookie store” and buy him a cookie. Ned finally relents when Frank reaches over and touches his arm, looks at him with those big eyes and says, “Come on, please?”

Sugar ‘N Spice, also known as THE best cookie store in all of the Midwest according to Ned, is an eleven minute walk from the restaurant. Ned leads the way and forces himself to ignore how their hands bump together any time they pass someone on the sidewalk, forcing them closer together. It’s very hard, though, so in order to distract himself he starts telling Frank about how he knows a lot of useless information about dog breeds because at some point in time he decided that it was important information to know. Frank listens to his story with full attention, even though Ned is pretty sure he’s just rambling and can’t actually be that interesting.

Once he’s done, Frank says he knows what Ned means, which is confusing for a number of reasons, the first reason being that that was not intended to be a relatable story. Frank explains that he too researches random things sometimes, because he thinks it’s important to know a little bit about everything.

“So if you need to know anything about the Franco-Spanish War or the different kinds of wildflowers that grow in California, I’m your man,” he laughs.

And then before he knows it, they’re there. The store’s sign glows in the early evening twilight and Ned feels his steps start to bounce a little with excitement, not unlike a child who knows they’re about to be taken to a toy store. When they enter, it still smells like seven different kinds of freshly baked cookies even though it’s the end of the day, and honestly, this is probably what heaven smells like.

“Wow,” Frank says as he looks around. “You weren’t kidding. This place is serious about their cookies.”

“Yeah!” Ned says excitedly. “I haven’t come by here recently ‘cause I haven’t had a reason to,” which is a lie, actually. He would have come here every day after realizing his feelings, but he had all that chocolate cake to take its place, so he practiced self-restraint and stayed home. “I don’t even know what the special cookie of the month is.”

“Looks like it’s dark chocolate pistachio sea salt,” Frank says, pointing towards a chalkboard decorated elegantly with chalk marker. “Kind of a mouthful.”

Ned gasps for the second time that night. “Oh my god,” he breathes, “we have to get those.”

“Really?” Frank asks, turning towards him. “You already know? We haven’t even looked at the display case yet.”

“We don’t need to,” Ned says. “Those are the ones.”

Frank ends up looking in the display case anyway, and since Frank is paying, Ned follows him and peers over his shoulder. He orders two of the dark chocolate pistachio sea salt, two raspberry macarons, a jumbo chocolate chip cookie “to split” and two bottles of water. Ned feels bad for making him pay for such an excessive amount, but Frank seems happy so he doesn’t say anything.

They sit at a little table by the windows and split the cookies, bantering back and forth about anything and everything. The cookies are so good Ned tears up a little, and Frank thinks it’s so funny he tries to take a picture. Ned holds his hand up in front of his face. “No paparazzi, please,” he says jokingly. He figures he should have seen this coming, but it doesn’t stop him from almost shrieking with laughter when Frank starts singing Lady Gaga horribly off tune while using his bottle of water as a microphone.

When they finally leave the store, it’s dark enough that the street lights have flickered on. Cars pass by on the street and muffle the conversations people have as they walk by. Ned turns back to face Frank, who’s already looking at him. “I’ll walk you home,” Frank says, and his tone is not a suggestion but a fact. He turns and starts to walk away, presumably towards Ned’s apartment.

“That’s the wrong way,” Ned calls out from where he stands still.

Frank wordlessly turns around and comes back, passes Ned going the other way. “Of course,” he mutters, “I knew that.” Ned smiles and jogs to catch up with him, falls in step by his side easily. “So,” Frank continues, “do you have any big plans for the rest of the summer?”

“Well, that camp I work for is in a week,” he says.

“Oh, yeah, you told me about that. Are you excited?”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “It’ll be good to see everyone one last time. I’ve gotten to know the other councelors pretty well, so it’ll be fun to see them again.”

They chat as they walk, and the closer they get to Ned’s apartment, the more he wishes he lived farther away. But he doesn’t, so it’s not long until they’re in front of the building and Frank is walking him up to the door. When Ned turns back to look at him, the dull light by the door makes every curve of his face look soft. Ned really, really, _really_ wants to kiss him, but he knows it’s not what Frank wants. It doesn’t help that Frank is just looking at him, though, lips parted slightly. Does he want to say something? Is he waiting for Ned to say something? Shit, is Ned making this awkward? What should he do? He starts fumbling around in his pockets for his keys, and the sound of them clinking together seems to pull Frank’s attention back to the present.

“I, uh,” he clears his throat, glances down, then back up again. Ned’s not a detective, but he’s pretty sure he knows nervous behavior when he sees it. “I had a good time.”

“Me too,” Ned says with a shy little smile. “Thanks for buying me cookies.”

“My pleasure. Thanks for buying dinner.”

Ned hums lightly. They look at each other for another moment, and he feels inexplicably warm. His grip on his keys falters and he almost drops them, feels his face heat up before he laughs at himself.

“I guess I’d better go,” he says, sticking his key in the lock before he can drop them again. “Goodnight, Frank.”

“Goodnight, Ned.” He hesitates slightly before turning around and heading back towards the sidewalk. Ned wonders what that was about. Maybe he imagined it. He pushes the door open then turns around at the last second.

“Be safe!” he calls out.

Frank turns briefly, flashing a smile. “Yeah, you too!”

“Okay!”

“Okay!”

He turns the corner, and Ned steps inside his apartment, shuts the door behind him. “Okay,” he echoes again, quieter, to no one.

\---

Ned doesn’t see Frank again before he leaves for camp. Nancy calls him about five times a day from Spain, telling him about all the suspicious people she’s met and all the ways she has already almost gotten herself killed. Ned tells her to be careful, tries to help her put the pieces together even though he really has no idea what he’s talking about. She doesn’t once mention the play or Frank or anything other than the mystery, thankfully. Good ol’ one track minded Nancy.

She comes back to town the day Ned leaves, so he’s able to see her long enough to kiss her on the cheek and say congratulations on not dying— _er I mean, solving the case_ —before he’s off.

Camp is good. It’s camp. There’s not a lot else to say about it. Nothing out of the ordinary happens. The first few days he’s there are spent setting up, and then the first day with all the kids is more setting up, going over rules and schedules, and mostly boring things. He thought he had devised a pretty cool name game, but when he excitedly tells all the kids about it, most of them just groan. Figures. He never really liked name games when he was their age either.

After that first day, though, he gets to do things like take groups on hikes and to the lake. The kids are old enough they don’t really need constant supervision, but it’s always safer to have an adult there when venturing far out into the woods or near fairly deep water, right? He also tries his best to do some of the crafty things the other councelors set up back in the dining cabin, even though he’s terrible at most of it. But it’s not about skill, it’s about being a good sport, setting a good example.

What’s really nice is that the councelors have their own cabin with small separate rooms, so at the end of the day he actually has time to himself. To read, breathe, listen to bugs. Seriously, there are so many bugs. Living in the city for most of the year always allows him to forget about the insane amount of bugs in the woods.

Joe texts him a few days after it starts to say that Nancy and Frank are going to hang out again, but it’s not like he’s about to drive three hours back into town just to ruin a couple hours of interaction and then drive back again. So he takes a walk around the cabins, starts rounding people up for dinner to distract himself.

A few days later, just as he’s getting into his room after breaking up a pretty brutal fight between some kids about the correct way to braid hair (which, predictably, resulting in hair pulling), he gets a call from Nancy on his cell phone. He’s pretty sure the reception is going to suck, but he answers anyway, flopping down onto his bed.

“Hey, Nance, what’s up?” He shuts the window so he’ll have more privacy, but the cicadas are so loud this year he can still hear them through the walls. Hopefully they’re not interested in eavesdropping on Ned’s personal life.

“Oh, good, you answered.” Her voice comes out a little fuzzy, but it’s not too terrible. “How’s camp?”

“Good! I’m a little tired, but it’s good. Why’d you call?”

“It’s Friday.” She says it with a tone of voice that implies that Ned is dumb. “One of our bi-weekly phone call days.”

“Oh, you’re right! I’ve been so busy I didn’t realize it was already the end of the week.”

“That’s okay, I know you’re busy. I still wanted to talk to you about something, though.”

“Sure,” he says, leaning back into his two lumpy pillows. “What’s up, buttercup?”

Nancy sighs. “Well, Frank asked me to get lunch with him.” Ned’s stomach drops and he rolls onto his side, phone pressed between his ear and his pillows.

“Yeah?” He tries really hard to keep his voice sounding normal. “How’d that go?”

“Well I was expecting him to ask me out. But I didn’t want him to, because then I’d just have to try to let him down easy, but there’s no good way to do that. The whole concept of letting someone down easy is absurd because—”

“Wait,” Ned says. He sits up. “You don’t like Frank?”

“No?” Nancy replies, sounding confused. “You thought I did?”

“Yes?” Ned replies in equal confusion. It had never even occurred to him that she might not like Frank, that if Ned had just sat back and done nothing she would have said no anyway.

“Well I don’t,” she says. “He’s a really great friend, but I’m enjoying being single for now. I’m trying to find myself, do things on my own for a while.”

When they were dating she was pretty much doing everything on her own too, but he doesn’t point that out, just hums in agreement instead.

“So anyway, I was expecting him to ask me out, but instead he started monologuing at me.”

“What do you mean?”

“He told me that he used to like me, and that just a month ago he was going to ask me out. But he never got the chance, and that it turned out it was better that way because he doesn’t feel that way anymore. He said I’m a great person, but he moved on. Oh, yeah, but he said that he couldn’t _fully_ move on until he had finally told me how he felt for so long, even if he doesn’t anymore. He kept repeating that part about not liking me anymore, like I might forget. It was _weird_ , Ned. The whole thing was just weird.”

“That is weird,” Ned agrees. He had been so sure that Frank only liked Nancy, would only ever like Nancy, but he had been wrong. Then again, he had been wrong about Nancy liking Frank too, so maybe Ned doesn’t actually know anything. Great. “Why do you think he was acting like that?”

“I’m not sure, honestly. It was so bizarre I didn’t even think to analyze any of his behavior while it was happening. And then once he was finally done, he was right back to acting like normal old Frank. I mean, can you think of any reason he’d act like that?”

“I have no idea,” he admits. He kind of wants to stop talking about Frank now. “Sorry Nancy.”

Nancy makes an impatient sound. “I thought you might be able to make something of it, since you two clicked a bit.”

Ned narrows his eyes at the wall he’s staring at. “What’re you talking about?”

“Well, I don’t know. It just seemed like when we all hung out together you two found something to talk about pretty easily. And I heard you two even hung out on your own?”

Ned sighs. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well sure it does,” she tells him. “Do you know how long it took us to have a normal conversation after I met him and Joe? One that didn’t sound like a two-way interrogation?”

“What?” Ned asks. Now he’s tired of talking about Frank _and_ confused.

“Any time he meets someone new, he acts like he can’t trust them, has to feel them out. And you know me, the best I can do after just meeting someone is ask a series of questions that eventually lead to the reveal of their entire life story. Except when you’re talking to another detective, they pick up on that and start trying to turn the questions back on you, and.” She stops, a little out of breath. “Well, you get the picture. But with you! He warmed up to you almost immediately. I mean, I know you guys have met before, obviously, but I could tell he wasn’t sure about you at first. But then, what, ten minutes later he was telling you about how boring college is. You bonded! That means something!”

They spend the next ten minutes or so arguing about it, then they start arguing about some other nonsense that doesn’t matter. It gets so ridiculous that they both start laughing and making fun of each other.

Eventually Ned has to hang up to help round up anyone not already in the cabins, but talking to Nancy really makes him feel better about everything, even if he just ends up more confused about his life than he had been before.

The next day is completely normal. Or as normal as it can be when one of the other counselors decides it’s a good idea to bring finger painting back, even though all of the kids are 14 or older. But it’s pretty fun, Ned will admit. He ends up with a very ugly painting of a pig to hang on his wall.

Sunday is also normal, that is until Ned gets a call at ten o’clock at night from Maria, one of the women who runs the camp. When he answers, he’s not sure what he’s expecting. He’s sure as hell not expecting what he hears.

“Ned Nickerson, you know we have a no visitor policy, don’t you? And we especially don’t like letting visitors in at night. So if you could kindly explain to me why you didn’t even notify me that you were expecting someone, that would be spectacular.”

Ned doesn’t think he’s heard anyone sound this mad since he pissed Frank off during that play. Good times. “Uh, I wasn’t expecting anyone, so…”

This time a deeper, much more male sounding voice comes through his cell phone’s speaker, though it’s harder to hear. “Tell him it’s Frank Hardy, and that I’m sorry but this is really important!”

Maria huffs angrily. “Thank you, sir, can you please be quiet now, I am on the phone here.” There’s a heavy sigh. “Will you just get your ass down to the office so I can go back to sorting this paperwork? I almost called the cops on this guy, and I’m not afraid to actually do it if it turns out you’ve brought a creep up here.”

With that, she hangs up the phone. Ned stares blankly at the floor for a few seconds before jumping off of his bed, tugging on his shoes, and running out the door. He’s not sure what motivates him more, the idea that Frank drove all the way out here just to see him (and tell him something, apparently, which sounds very dramatic) or the fact that he has no doubt in his mind Maria will have Frank arrested if Ned doesn’t show up in the next three minutes.

When he enters the office, Maria is sitting behind the front desk sorting papers into various manila envelopes, occasionally handing a few to Frank who is standing on the other side of the desk with a stapler. Frank has a green and brown flannel on under his truly horrific albeit signature gray vest. Ned immediately wonders if this is about a case, wonders what could be so important that Frank has to come see him in person. Did something happen to Nancy? Or Joe?

Frank and Maria are talking about something quiet enough that Ned can’t hear. The door swings shut behind him and the noise of it causes the two of them to stop talking and look up at him in unison.

“Ned,” Maria greets, and she seems less pissed off than before. That’s good. “Your friend here was just explaining to me the reason he’s come to see you.”

Frank’s face changes to a look of ill-concealed panic. He glances back at her, and they seem to communicate via facial expressions Ned can’t read. What the hell is happening.

He voices this question aloud, causing Frank to turn back to him.

“I have something to tell you,” Frank says, setting down the stapler. He sounds very calm, which kinda freaks Ned out a little.

“Okay,” he draws the word out uneasily.

“Ned, calm down. It’s not a murder confession.”

This makes Maria snort, and when they both look back at her she holds both her hands up.

“Can we go somewhere more private?” Frank asks.

Ned is still looking at Maria, smiling at her hopefully and a little uneasily.

“Oh, go ahead,” she relents. “Just keep quiet so I can get this work done.”

Ned thanks her and leads the way out. As soon as they’re outside, Ned grabs Frank’s arm and looks at him long and hard because, seriously. What the fuck.

“Look, I will tell you everything, but can we please go somewhere…” He glances around. “Nicer than this?”

Ned sighs, tries to think of somewhere far enough away from the cabins that they can talk but “nice” enough that Frank will stop bitching. Then it hits him. Duh.

“Follow me,” he mutters, grabbing Frank’s wrist because he can’t stop the voice in his head that’s shrieking, _Touch him! Make sure he’s really here! Hold his hand!_

It’s a little bit of a hike to the lake, but Frank doesn’t pull his wrist away the entire walk. He also doesn’t say anything, so Ned refuses to say anything either. The moon is bright and the bugs call out to each other, echoing through the woods as they walk by.

Once they come to a clearing in front of the lake, Ned drops Frank’s wrist but continues walking until he gets to a log near the water and sits down on one end of it. Frank plops down beside him and looks out at the lake. Because it’s nighttime, it’s cold, and because they’re right next to the water, it’s even colder. Ned is wearing joggers that are very soft but very thin, and his light blue camp T-shirt with a logo on the front and the word “STAFF” on the back. While he feels very casually and comfortably fashionable, he also feels very cold. After a minute, he starts to run his hands up and down his arms.

Frank turns to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

Ned makes an annoyed pouty face. “I was so worried she was going to arrest you that I hauled my ass over to the office without grabbing a jacket.”

“So you’re cold.”

“Yes, I’m cold.”

“Here.” Frank unzips his horrific vest and shrugs it off, hands it to Ned.

Ned restrains his grimace and takes it, zipping it up to his chin. It’s warm and it smells faintly like expensive cologne and earth and maybe a little sweat. Like Frank. It smells like Frank.

“Better?”

Ned looks to the side, makes a whining sound without opening his mouth. “My arms are still cold…”

“Oh my god,” Frank groans, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, I’m not the one who picked out the camping gear without sleeves,” Ned points out. “Speaking of which, are you on a case?”

Frank looks confused. “What? No. Why’d you think that?”

“Really? I just thought…Oh, never mind. Why are you here?”

“I’m getting there,” Frank says. “Don’t rush me.”

“Oh, excuse me for wanting to know why you showed up at a camp for fourteen year olds uninvited at 10PM.”

Frank rubs his face with his hands, groaning again. “This is not at all going how I’d planned.”

“Planned? What’re you talking about? Hey, how’d you even get here? You don’t have a car.”

“Oh my god,” Frank says again, this time faster, with more urgency, “stop talking!”

“I’ll stop once you actually explain yourself!”

Frank takes a deep breath like he’s trying to stop himself from getting angry, and on the exhale he grabs both of Ned’s hands in his own and looks him in the eye. Ned blinks, taken aback. “Okay, you want an explanation? Four days ago I realized that I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone in my life, and it scared me so fucking bad that I almost packed up my shit and headed back to Bayport that second.”

Ned blinks again. “What?” he asks quietly, his voice cracking halfway through.

“I didn’t, obviously,” he continues. “I freaked out, and I had no idea what to do, and then I was going to wait until you got back to tell you, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t not see you. I had to tell you, because you’re the kindest and sweetest person I’ve ever met. And it’s not even like you’re trying really hard just to impress everyone. You’re just like that. It’s just who you are. Always thinking of other people, trying to help when you can. Even when you didn’t like me at first, at dinner, you still paid for the check. Do you know how confusing and, and…intriguing that is? All I wanted from there on out was to figure you out, find out why you were thoughtful when you didn’t need to be. Why you made sure I had a blanket when I fell asleep after the stakeout, why you so easily offered to help me with Togo. I thought there had to be something I was missing this whole time, thought you had some massive scheme worked out to make an idiot out of me, but you didn’t. You never did. I wanted you to be suspicious, wanted you to be hiding something like this was a mystery, but you never were. It’s just who you are. Kind, sweet, charming. You were never hiding anything.”

Ned is definitely blushing. He’s in shock and his face is on fire. He wants to argue, though, wants to say it’s not true, not when he was trying so hard this whole time to ruin Frank’s chances with Nancy. He doesn’t want this to end, whatever this is, but he has to be honest. He opens his mouth to object, but Frank beats him to it.

“And don’t even bring up your obvious as hell plot to ruin my dates with Nancy. Because I saw through that from day one, okay? I knew what you were doing, and you were so bad at it that I didn’t even mind when you kept doing it. I actually enjoyed hanging out with you.”

“What about that awful play?” Ned finally croaks, voice so wavering he doesn’t know if Frank will be able to hear him. “I made you so mad…”

“I was mad because I thought we were really hitting it off before that. I was really starting to like you. But then you randomly started acting like an asshole and it was confusing, I couldn’t tell if everything before then had been fake, or if the way you were acting that night was just an act. Obviously you’re not actually an asshole, though, or I wouldn’t be here right now babbling on and on about how good of a person you are.”

Ned smiles, but it falters a little with the leftover guilt still ebbing away at his stomach.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Frank says softly. Looks at Ned with so much warmth in his eyes. “I just…I wanted you to know that I care about you, and everything that may or may not have gone wrong doesn’t matter. I know you, know that you’ve got a heart of gold. And I just wanted you to know how I feel. You deserve the truth. And the truth is I like you. So much.”

Ned lets the reality of those words soak in. The initial shock is starting to dissipate, replaced by a giddy happiness. Frank still hasn’t let go of his hands. His thumbs run across Ned’s knuckles absentmindedly.

“But if you don’t feel the same way, I understand. I just had to tell you. I couldn’t keep it in…”

Ned’s so happy, he doesn’t think he can speak. He wants to, to tell him _no, I do like you, I really do, I have this whole time_. But he’s such a sap, if he opens his mouth he’ll probably start crying. And he really doesn’t want to do that. That would be so embarrassing he’d probably die. He has to do something, though, because Frank is looking at him with such desperate hope and with each second that passes the hope fades into a look of increasing dread.

So Ned does the only thing he can think to do. He pulls his hands away from Frank’s, grabs his face and pulls him forward. He meets him halfway so their lips brush together, noses bumping softly, not quite closing the distance. Frank’s eyes widen before they fall shut, his hands reaching for Ned’s shoulders to steady them both as he presses forward.

It’s the sweetest kiss Ned has ever had. The warmth of Frank’s lips is enough to get his heart stuttering, and then Frank’s hands move up the back of his neck until his fingers are running through the short hair there. Ned makes an embarrassing noise in the back of his throat, finds himself pressing closer as their mouths move together. He’s wanted this for so long now, he realizes, since he first saw Frank in that dark blue blazer and thought, _fuck, he’s hot_.

When they pull away from each other, they don’t go far. Ned feels a little breathless, his chest raising a falling heavier than usual, and he can feel Frank’s own breaths fanning against his lips.

He swallows before saying, “I like you a lot too, obviously.”

Frank smiles, really smiles, his cheeks rosy and the corners of his eyes all scrunched up. And then the laugh spills out, giddy and beatific. He leans his forehead against Ned’s shoulder as he laughs, a relieved sound, his own shoulders bouncing with it. Ned links their hands together and looks up at the sky, the stars and the moon, and he knows it’s sappy but he silently thanks them for sending him this perfect, dorky boy.

When he looks back down, he kisses the top of Frank’s head, because he can and also because he wants an excuse to smell his hair. It smells like berries and pine needles, which really shouldn’t go together but somehow it does.

“What shampoo do you use?” Ned asks suddenly, face still in Frank’s hair. It’s so soft…

Frank laughs harder now, burying his face in the crook of Ned’s neck. Ned can feel his eyelashes against his skin. “Are you smelling my hair?” he asks, voice going higher because of how absurd he seems to think this is.

“Yes,” Ned admits without any shame. “It’s very nice. And soft. Do you use conditioner?” The only response he gets is more giggling. “I’m serious, Hardy. Leak your hair care routine.”

“Shut up,” Frank mumbles fondly, finally lifting his head to press another kiss to Ned’s lips. “You’re so embarrassing.”

“Me?” he asks, eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Never. Now come on,” he stands up, pulls Frank up with him, won’t let go of his hands for the world. “I’m still very cold, so if you would please accompany me back to my room where there are blankets, that would be very kind.”

“Ooh, inviting me back to your room,” Frank teases, waggling his eyebrows like he’s in middle school or something.

“Who’s the embarrassing one now?” Ned asks, but he’s grinning.

They walk back to his room hand in hand, and it’s the first time they’ve gone anywhere together and Ned hasn’t been sad to get there, because he knows that this time they won’t part ways. They’ll still be together once they reach the cabin’s door, and tomorrow, and even when Frank has to leave tomorrow, he’ll be there when Ned gets back to River Heights. And they’ll find a way to stay together after that, because now that Ned knows what it’s like to have Frank Hardy by his side, he never wants anyone else.

 

**Author's Note:**

> love confessions under the moonlight? in my frank/ned fanfiction? it’s more likely than you think  
> a few ending notes:  
> the entire premise of this fic was a silly conversation I had with my sister about how the drama between ned/nancy and frank/nancy is so silly when obviously the only true pairing is ned/frank, duh. so that’s why i poked some fun at that stuff!  
> the “key from the mayor” line is a reference to The New Hardy Boys on youtube, check them out if you haven’t yet! their videos are hilarious  
> I have only been to a summer camp thing once a long time ago so I don't remember how any of it works, sorry if it was completely wrong just like, suspend disbelief for that part of the story thanks  
> also frank’s eyes are GREEN i don’t care what the books say


End file.
